Lifestyle: Making a rented place feel like home

Living somewhere that's rented, you do sometimes have to make do with things that aren't really very you. Like a green fabric sofa, that I never would've chosen! But accessorised with soft mint cushions, we took the emphasis off what might have been quite a garish colour, adding retro touches to the room that made it all work together.

Generally, I'm not a huge fan of dark wood furniture but in this room it works. So the bargain sewing box, which became a home for our little family of succulents, and wooden drinks trolley, which became our little coffee bar, fit perfectly. Because they're old, they fit perfectly into the retro feel of the place, and at £4 each, they were a bargain!

I picked these up at a local auction but it's definitely worth keeping your eyes out in charity shops and for auctions - just try to keep an open mind and be patient because you never know when the perfect piece might show up! Next on my list is a desk because I'm starting to crave a nice workspace (and because I'm forever cluttering up the dining table with piles of papers!)

Moving into a new place is always majorly stressful. Especially when you come to realise the overwhelming amount of stuff that you and your partner seem to own. But now the dust has had time to settle, and most of the piles of stuff and boxes are tidied away, I thought it was about time to show you around. I wanted to do a series of posts on our new place and how we've made a rented house feel more like home. And what better place to start than our sitting room?

Since we've moved into a pretty old house, which was built at the turn of the century, it has plenty of character but of course, there's a lot of quirks. Which I guess you can't escape with living in an old place! When we first started hunting, we knew we'd love something with wooden floors and a proper fireplace. Electric fireplaces are easy to use, but there's something about a real old fire. Sadly, our place has had its chimneys long blocked up. But having been painted and filled with cut logs, it's still a feature of the room. And it still gives quite a cosy feel to the place, even without it omitting any actual heat!

I've wanted a place with real wooden floors for as long as I can remember, so obviously this is something I love about the new place. The only problem is that wooden floors can take some serious maintenance and ours could use a little TLC.

I know that ultimately, living in a rented place, you kind of have to accept that things won't be exactly how you'd like them. And because we know we'll be here for at least a year, we don't mind doing a little work to help get it there. But since we stripped the carpets up in the bedroom and sanded those floors, redoing the sitting room felt like too much of a daunting task!

So rather than face restoring the floors, we've covered the damaged or concreted areas with a couple of rugs, to hide adding a little more colour and warmth to the room. Of course, it's been a great excuse to buy rugs but adding those little touches has really given the place a homely feel. Not to mention making it a lovely spot to work from.